Usually for the excuses Assange is using–that he might face the death penalty in the US for his work with Wikileaks–the place you would probably want to seek asylum is Sweden. Sweden is pretty fucking good on not extraditing people: their law means they cannot send someone to a country with the death penalty or for political offences. And they take CIA rendition flights very seriously. Simply put, Sweden would not extradite someone like Assange for his work with Wikileaks.

So why won’t Assange go back to Sweden, where he is still phenomenally unlikely to find his arse extradited? All that is left, once the smoke and mirrors of the inflated threat of extradition from Sweden clears, is the fact that Assange raped two of Sweden’s citizens. And of course, Assange’s fans are still banging the rape apologism drum.

I’m sorry this is not a very good blog for today, but today was the day I was berated by Glenn Greenwald and DHothersall – both of them insisting that I was a liar because I had not read their minds and understood what they meant rather than what they said.

He is not scared of going to Sweden because Sweden might let the US extradite him. The UK is more likely to let Assange be extradited to the US than Sweden is.

So Assange has some other reason for preferring to stay in the UK (or go to Ecuador, not noted for its support of free speech) than fear of the US. Which he is lying about.

That “other reason” could be totally unconnected from two Swedish citizens alleging that he raped them, and the Swedish police taking this seriously. If Assange is tried in Sweden, the court would be obliged to assume neutrality.

The rest of us are not banned from speculating freely about why a man who claims to be mortally afraid of the US does not want to accept an invitation to a country which has stringent legal protections against extradition or extraordinary rendition.